Green activism 'keeping Aborigines in poverty'

Dan Harrison

ABORIGINAL academic Marcia Langton has accused the left of standing in the way of indigenous advancement, consigning the nation's first peoples to lives of poverty as caretakers of wilderness.

In her second Boyer lecture, an extract of which is published in today's Insight section, Professor Langton (below) argues the environmental movement has emerged as ''one of the most difficult of all the obstacles hindering Aboriginal economic development''.

''Among the left, and among those opinion leaders who hang onto the idea of the new 'noble savage', Aboriginal poverty is invisible, masked by a 'wilderness' ideology,'' Professor Langton argues in the lecture, which will be broadcast on Sunday.

''Whenever an Aboriginal group negotiates with a resource extraction company there is an unspoken expectation that no Aboriginal group should become engaged in any economic development. They only tolerate Aboriginal people living on their own land as caretakers of wilderness, living in poverty and remaining uneducated and isolated.''

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Professor Langton, the foundation chair of Australian indigenous studies at the University of Melbourne, attacks environmental campaigners who she says had teamed up with dissident Aboriginal groups to oppose developments at Jabiluka in western Arnhem Land and elsewhere, ''not because of impacts on Aboriginal people, but to preserve nature and 'wilderness'.

''Whether Aboriginal groups had projects imposed on them or negotiated successful settlements, these professional protesters, supported by sophisticated non-government organisations funded by a gullible public, accused Aboriginal leaders of 'selling out'. Not once have they campaigned against Aboriginal poverty. They assume that this is normal for the natives.

''Time and again, native title groups have spent years getting an agreement with a resource company over the line, negotiating income streams that might shift indigenous people from the margins to the centre of regional economic development in return for land access - only for a ragtag team of 'wilderness' campaigners to turn up with an entourage of disaffected Aboriginal protesters to stop development.''

She accuses the Labor Party of taking Aboriginal voters for granted since the days of the Whitlam government, but says this had changed with the election of West Australian Liberal Ken Wyatt as the first indigenous member of the House of Representatives, and the defeat of Labor in this year's Northern Territory election, largely due to the disaffection of indigenous voters in bush seats.

Professor Langton says the territory result challenged mainstream perceptions of the marginal power of the Aboriginal vote, and demonstrated the Country Liberal Party - once opposed to Aboriginal rights - had changed its colour.

She says Aboriginal voters had lost patience with a government that had failed to serve their interests fairly. ''They were fed up with left-wing causes imposed from down south, be it live cattle export restrictions, opposition to mining or rolling back the intervention.''

In electing four outback Aboriginal leaders to the NT assembly as Country Liberal members, she says the territory's conservatives realised they had more in common with indigenous people than their city-dwelling kin.

''Both groups need land-based industries to support their economies and way of life,'' Professor Langton says.

Professor Langton's lecture will be broadcast on ABC Radio National on Sunday at 5pm and online at abc.net.au/radionational/boyerlectures.